Chapter 30 Officer Daddy Cara #4
“What I mean is, when shit goes wrong, I ask myself what I’d do, yes, but I ask myself what I’d do if it were my friend going through it. It’s too easy to get caught up in your thoughts and second-guess everything, but when it’s your friend, the decision is—”
“Easy,” I finish for him on a whisper. “The decision is easy when it’s a friend.”
“Exactly. Because we love our friends and want the best for them, but when it’s us?” Carter shakes his head. “We’re harder on ourselves than anyone else. I think, deep down, we wonder if we really deserve the best, the love, the good things.”
I hang my head, wringing my hands in my lap. “I never used to question those things before.”
“But it’s normal to, you realize that? It’s human, and it’s okay. We’re not invincible every day, but if you surround yourself with good friends, the right support system that refuses to let you forget all the best parts of you… you’ll be invincible when you need to be.”
I scrunch my nose, sniffing as I try to ward off the tears stinging my eyeballs. Those poor, magnificent blues have cried enough for one lifetime. “Damn it,” I mutter as one sneaks out. “I hate when you make sense.”
“No one makes more sense than me,” he says far too confidently as he pulls me to my feet and into a hug.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Basically. And by the way, Care? ‘High-maintenance’ is just a label people with too many opinions use to describe women who know their worth and refuse to accept anything less. People like you.” He throws open the patio door. “Ollie! Cara said I’m philosophical!”
“Cara, for shit’s sake.” A baby cries, and then another.
Olivia throws her arms in the air in one of her signature tantrums, but I see every ounce of humor shining in her eyes as she struts by me, nudging me in the side.
“Oh, great! Cara calls Carter philosophical and the babies wake up! I hope you’re happy with yourself, Care! ”
It’s nothing more than a silly comment, but it has me wondering… Am I? Am I happy with myself?
I mull it over in my head, that single word that holds so much weight.
What does it even mean to be happy with yourself?
It used to feel so simple, so obvious, but the more I look back on it, the more I wonder if I’d been confusing happiness with pride.
It had always been easy to be proud of myself, proud of the life I’d built, proud of my accomplishments, and when that pride was wiped away, when uncertainty took over, when I was plagued with self-doubt and, in the worst moments, self-hatred, every ounce of happiness slowly vanished too.
But happiness is more than a list of accomplishments to be proud of, isn’t it?
Maybe happiness is having a group of friends whose gazes all connect with mine, a silent check-in that says they’re ready to go to battle for me if I need them to, that they’ll stand by my side today and every day.
Maybe happiness is the laughter that dances around us, the way it forbids the light from vanishing in its entirety, making sure there’s always just enough for me to find my way out.
Maybe it’s the way the problems don’t disappear, but ease enough to let me breathe, a reminder that I’m never carrying anything all on my own.
Maybe it’s the gentlest of touches, a passing hand on my shoulder.
Maybe it’s a loaned sweater when the sun goes down, or a marshmallow toasted over the fire exactly the way I like.
Maybe it’s the comfort, the safety that comes from existing in a place where my people know me, see me, where I can be every version of myself—brave, bold, broken—without fear of rejection.
Maybe happiness is the love that surrounds me, the one that seems to amplify, radiating through this small village we’ve created, same as the brilliant way the sun sets in the sky as we gather beneath it, the fireworks that paint it with vivid colors while a small boy climbs into my lap, lays his head over my heart, and tangles his fingers with mine.
Maybe it’s realizing that the accusations, the lies one person tells and the ones I’ve told myself, the war of self-doubt that sometimes wages in my head, none of that noise comes close to the peaceful sigh of a child who’s taken all of his trust and placed it in your hands, or the I love you, firefly that the man who stole my heart presses against my ear.
Maybe it’s realizing that these people, this family, they chose me. But only because, at one point in my life, I chose myself first. Decided I was worth it, that I deserved these kinds of people, this kind of love, and vowed to accept nothing less.
Happiness wasn’t the fall from grace headfirst into a grief so deep, so mind-altering, I thought I’d never return, and it wasn’t the treacherous climb back up.
But maybe happiness is the view from the top of the mountain, the gasp of fresh air when I finally open my eyes, because every step I’ve taken, no matter how small or how slow, has led me here.
Maybe happiness is understanding I’ll never be the same person I was before, thanking her for everything she did for me, saying goodbye, and welcoming the woman I was always meant to be.
My thoughts stay here for what feels like hours, through the fireworks and long after we’re home, settling in for the night.
“Cara? Why you cwyin’?”
I blink away the tears until the stars outside the window are clear again, like crystals in an endless sea of black, and I look down at the boy in my lap, the one who’s been snuggled up there since the moment we got home and put his pajamas on.
Abel twists in the window seat, cupping my damp cheeks in his hands. As his green eyes search mine, I am acutely aware that I would not be here with him had it not been for the too-many negative tests, the yearning to fill the hole in my heart.
“My heart is feeling a lot of things right now,” I tell him quietly, sniffing as I place my hands over his on my face.
“My heart is funny like that too, sometimes. Sometimes my heart wants to cry for my Catharine, but it’s happy because I have my Cara, and my Emmett.
” He places his small hand over my heart and rests his forehead against mine.
“It’s okay, though. Hearts are big, so we can feel anything we want to feel. ”
And what an odd feeling it is, as his gentle fingers brush my tears away, to feel both the heaviness of the wave of grief that crashes into me headfirst, and the warmth of the love that sifts like the finest sand into every single crack and crevice of a heart that continues to ache but is no longer shattered.
Because maybe happiness is understanding that it can still hurt, that it can burn and bleed, that I can cry, scream, struggle, and still, I can heal.
I can love, and I can be loved. Maybe it’s making peace with every broken fragment, every wound that’s turned into a scar, letting them serve not as a reminder of my failures or shortcomings, but that I was stronger than what tried to destroy me.
That I survived, even when I was so sure I couldn’t.
Maybe it’s understanding that there is so, so much love despite it all.
Love to give, to receive, to build. Love that doesn’t require you to be fully healed, to be whole, in order to be worthy of it.
And so the truth?
The truth is I am happy. With myself, with this life.
But more than that? I’m full of love and gratitude for the life I’ve lived, and the one I haven’t lived yet, and the body, the heart that sees me through all of it.
After all, it’s the fissures in my heart that made space for the light to shine through.